LEADING York Thai boxer Richard Cadden lost his latest fight - but still derived many positives ahead of his world title eliminator next month.

Cadden, the UK number one at 62kg, gave away 6kg and three weight divisions to take on Newcastle fighter Craig Joseph at Middleton Civic Hall in Manchester, and lost unanimously on points over five two-minute rounds as the 6ft 3in Geordie made full use of his height advantage.

Cadden had chosen the bout in order to keep in shape ahead of his big international fight against a Belgian on April 18 as his last opponent, Kent's Lee Colville, lasted just one minute 38 seconds in their scrap two weeks ago.

He said: "I wanted to fight to keep busy, but I didn't know anything about him (Joseph) before and I went into it totally blind - and when I got into the ring I saw he was 6ft 3in and had a massive height and reach advantage.

"I didn't feel out of my depth in the strength department. I felt good and a few people felt I pipped it but the judges gave it the other way."

Joseph won the first two rounds, the third was shared and Cadden took the last two, but the York fighter explained said: "Because of his dominance at long-range it made it appear he was running the show as opposed to the less apparent scoring techniques that I was scoring with.

"I was trying to work inside and I was a lot stronger in the clinches but when it came to boxing at long-range he had the advantage to pick his shots off and to his credit he used it well."

Updated: 10:51 Thursday, March 18, 2004